Walking La Crescent and packing for north

From the hardware store looking down to Main Street

The other direction down the street

 Yesterday afternoon for my walk I trotted  the mile to the grocery store in our "downtown" to get an ingredient for dinner.  It was a great day for walking, coolish but sunny. I considered riding my bike but it was a bit windy, fine when it's at your back but tougher pedaling into the wind especially uphill.   As was expected for a Sunday afternoon La Crescent and streets were fairly deserted; I took my smart phone along and  snapped some pictures of our small quiet town which I jokingly refer to as  Mayberry, actually Barney Fife resides here, a story for another time.  I posted the photos to Facebook but decided to share here too, to update my blog presence.  

One of  three banks in this town, population 5000.
In the 1940's when Jerry was growing up here, this was
the elementary school. 

On my way back home with small bag in hand I stopped to photo our only traffic light at the highway intersection.  Actually not much traffic even on the highways, but here are some photos of that intersection:

Our recent  week of heat wave subsided and now we are enjoying  lovely MN cooler weather, so much so that I wore a sweater over a top yesterday to church.  But I love the cooler air, no complaints here and we feel this is a preview of we expect in August, 50 to 60 degrees. 

Only 11 days until we  depart "north to Alaska" for  which preparation has consumed hours of my thought, planning and staging for packing.  My wardrobe will be all casual, jeans, t's and layers. We were advised to pack a separate suitcase for the  cruise at the tour's end; that bag will be held  on the coaches that will transport us all over on land and delivered to our state room once we are on board our Celebrity Lines Millennium.  We have done cruises in the past and are not impressed now with posing for captain's night or dressing up, in finery galore.  Phooey, been there before, done that, and will opt for casual dining elsewhere on the ship.  We know we will have rainy weather too,  but we are  prepared for that courtesy of our tour company, John Hall's who sent us each our monogrammed, dandy long length (for us short people) wind breaker aka rain jackets. A couple weeks ago when the box arrived with our gear, tote  carry along bags, jackets, tags, luggage tags, itinerary, information, etc  it was like Christmas.    

Staging clothes onto the bed

Putting one guest bedroom to use or staging and packing, or for my wardrobe.  Jerry is quite confident he can get his jeans shirts socks and underwear into his suitcase in no time, and he likely will.  But I must ponder, a tiny bit of bling to go along with ultra casual...and then,  what if I need.. and do not have it......well  the short  answer is "punt" or another 4 letter word would be, "shop."
It's a challenge packing suitcases, limited to weight and all the sort of business travelers who do not drive their own motor homes deal with all the time.  However I am sure that I will meet the demands and after all since he has extra room in his suitcases, I can always use some of that.  I think if I had lived in  an earlier age I would have enjoyed steamer trunks filled to the brim accompanying me on voyages....that is if I were in the right elite traveling class.